In my absence, listproc attempted to inappropriately filter out a few
messages. Since they're not too out of date, I'm going to foward them
here again. My apologies if you think the conversations have drifted
far enough away that I shouldn't have bothered.
Also, while I'm here, for unknown reasons, Kevin Padian is not
currently lurking. Feel free to post wild fantasies about pterosaur
locomotion without fear of getting dressed down ;-)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 1995 18:03:20 +1000
To: dinosaur@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu
From: pwillis@ozemail.com.au (Paul Willis)
>GSP
Wrote quite a piece about how mass extinctions will be unimportant
because we are all going to be robots it fifty years. Wow, pass the
ice. And he started the post with -
>I am perpetually amazed at the anthrocentric nature of human
>thought.
Sorry, mate, I am going to have to sink the slipper here.
Firstly, mass extinctions are important, particularly if you are
about to be involved in one.
Secondly, the impending one is different because of the timescale
involved and the fact that it is "self inflicted", therefore
potentially avoidable.
As for the future of humanity inside a computer, in fifty years time
the earths population will be in excess of 10 billion people and
more likely around 15 billion. Do you really think that our
societies will be so advanced and that there will be enough raw
materials to build and provide these computer bodies for every one?
Or did you just have the rich people of the earth in mind? You
certainly didn't appear to consider any other form of life yet you
are amazed at the anthrocentric nature of human thought!
Let us be realistic: we are facing environmental disaster and, given
past experiences, our species is unlikely to survive and we are
likely to take lots of other species with us. Creating possible life
rafts for a select few will does nothing to face up to the problems.
Cheers, Paul
pwillis@ozemail.com.au
Five points to all readers who realised that there is no such thing
as a phacoptid trilobite. Lose the five marks if you didn't make the
logical connection and tried to see the image anyway.